The Shelf-Connected Supply Chain: Strategically Linking CPFR with S&OP at the Executive Level

Consumer goods manufacturers have made significant investments in cross-functional customer teams with the hopes of gaining better insights into consumer demand to improve sales. Many built these teams to assist in driving efficiencies back through their supply chains and formally link the customer’s perspective into their on-going corporate sales and operations planning (S&OP) process. Yet it is still very common that the data and insights of these teams are lost in translation, and corporate planning functions continue to build their future plans off of historical shipments out of their plants and distribution centers (DCs) versus the demand signal from the shelf. This article highlights strategies for consideration for deploying a shelf-connected supply chain that links collaborative customer execution with executive level planning. FRED BAUMANN | Mr. Baumann is Vice President of Industry Strategy at JDA Software, where he has been instrumental in driving JDAs collaborative trading community strategies and launching the company s CPFR and S&OP offerings. Prior to that, he worked for IBM in an application training role and The Pillsbury Company as a Value Chain Manager. At The ...